


to the beat of our hearts // staccato dreams

by valafatoren



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/F, Hurt and comfort, post qoaad, rosastairs, tscwlwweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 14:45:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14427723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valafatoren/pseuds/valafatoren
Summary: Emma's having nightmares, but with Cristina here she might finally be able to heal.





	to the beat of our hearts // staccato dreams

“Emma?” Cristina murmured, brushing the blonde hair back from her forehead, “Emma love, are you alright?”

“Mmff,” Emma moaned into her pillow before rolling over and blinking indulgently. Catching the sight of Cristina’s anxious eyes above her, she pushed herself up, yawning, and faced her girlfriend.

“What? Oh…did it happen again?”

Cristina hummed a little agreement, nodding slowly, “You were calling out.”

“Ugh,” Emma rubbed her eyes fiercely and shook her head a few times, chasing off the last remnants of drowsiness. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I don’t mind,” Cristina insisted softly, stroking her back, “though,” she bit her lip, “are you sure you don’t want to see someone about it?”

“I’m fine,” Emma said, and the words seemed unnaturally biting and harsh in the otherwise tranquil atmosphere. She cringed, and attempted to backpedal, “Cristina, I’m sorry, I-“

All the excuses were cut off her tongue as Cristina stopped her with a small touch on her hand, and tilted Emma’s face up to meet hers. The look in Cristina’s eyes was indescribable and yet conveyed such understanding that made Emma want to cry with relief.  

Perhaps she did, as the world seemed to go all blurry until she could no longer see the thrown aside blankets, the shadows the soft pink lamp threw around the walls, the polaroids and fairy lights strung up on the headboard, only Cristina, Cristina, _Cristina._

Cristina with her messy brown hair and askew nightgown. Cristina with her beautiful, sweet smile. Cristina with her weary eyes that still gazed at Emma as if she was everything in the world.

Emma might have sobbed a little and fallen into her arms and clutched her for all her worth, and Cristina might have held her back equally tightly, part support, part concern, part understanding and all love.

They might have stayed like that four several hours until the room was alit with a hazy golden glow.

“I can still see them, you know,” Emma’s voice was hoarse, and she choked out her next words, “I still see the smile on her face, can see the moment it turns shocked, then into pure agony. I can hear the choked sound and the little sigh. I feel him too, vividly. The tearing sensation in my chest as if a vital part of me was being ripped out. And the worst part,” she paused, and it fell out of her in a rush, “the worst part was that _I wasn’t there!_ And now, and now I have to learn to live without them and each day is so painful Cristina, it hurts. _It hurts.”_

“I know, I kno _w_ ,” Cristina said, and the pain and sorrow in her voice made Emma look up, “I feel it too.”

A small noise escaped Emma, and Cristina tightened her arms, “I feel it too.”

There was something raw, and precious about the pure solidarity of the statement, and Emma’s heart hurt because knew her scars were finally in sight, but she knew now, with Cristina here beside her, that they could finally start healing.

There was nothing to say, no words that could express how she felt. The complexity and the depth of the gratefulness, the love, the nights spent in each other’s embrace and every small touch that helped her to bring these wounds to the light, and every touch that now bathed her in a rosy healing glow of pure, unconditional love.

“Cristina,” she murmured, and just held her tight, whispering her name over and over again like a prayer. “Cristina, Cristina, Cristina.”

The warm glow had brightened to encompass the entire room, flooding it with light and hailing the exit of the night and its shadows.

Emma opened her eyes, stroked Cristina’s cheek and let out a breath to the other girl’s low hum that softly washed away the last of the hurt she was holding onto. Emma’s shoulders collapsed in, and they breathed in sync for a few moments, soft inhales and exhales to a beat only the two could hear, the music of their hearts as one.

“I might not be completely fine,” Emma admitted slowly, and opened her hands so that Cristina could slip hers in. She looked up through her lashes, and then raised her entire face so that Cristina could gaze into her eyes and her into Cristina’s and see the honesty and love reciprocated in both their features.  

“But…with you here? I think I will be.”

Mutely, Cristina pulled Emma into an embrace, kissing her forehead over and over again. And for the first time in so long she had lost count, Emma’s tears were not ones of sadness.


End file.
